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Doctors blame regular cannabis smoking for causing a rise in a debilitating disease known as "vanishing lung syndrome".

The condition is traditionally associated with tobacco but doctors treating respiratory illnesses in people aged 25 to 40 are increasingly finding it in patients who have seldom, if ever, smoked normal cigarettes.

Cannabis smokers are particularly at risk because they hold smoke in their lungs for longer, and marijuana spliffs are rolled without filters.

At the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Dr Mark Johnson, a specialist registrar in respiratory medicine, said he had found a regular stream of patients showing signs of the syndrome, a form of emphysema that reduces the surface of the lungs and replaces it with huge cysts known as giant bullae.

The cysts restrict the alveoli, the air sacs in the lung that permit the transfer of oxygen into the blood.

"Much more work needs to be done in this field," says Dr Johnson. "Every couple of months I find a new patient showing signs of this condition but nobody knows for sure just how many people are affected."

Research by Dr Johnson and his colleagues found patients who smoked two to three spliffs a day suffered similar lung damage to smokers who inhaled more than 20 cigarettes a day. The study found cannabis smokers inhaled more deeply and held the smoke in their lungs up to four times longer than tobacco users.

This, and the lack of filter tips, means that every marijuana cigarette results in far more tar and a much heavier reduction in the haemoglobin available to carry oxygen.

Sufferers are predominantly men, between 25 and 40, and chronic cannabis smokers.

Other ill-effects associated with marijuana use included cancer, schizophrenia and impotence.

--------------------One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today because growers in the 30s lobbied against hemp farmers -- they saw it as competition, because It is not chemically addictive as is nicotine, alcohol, or caffeine.